


Can't Buy Me Love

by Nabielka



Category: Whyborne and Griffin - Jordan L. Hawk
Genre: Gift Giving, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 13:33:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11738103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/pseuds/Nabielka
Summary: In which Griffin buys Whyborne a tie.





	Can't Buy Me Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MildredMost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredMost/gifts).



“For my brother,” Griffin had told her, but the woman had paid him little attention, only adjusting her wares. 

The words had come out of habit. Chicago was a big city, but even so, it had paid to take care; even a Pinkerton could not always pick up his tail. Widdershins was small, but it was no Fallow, and besides, its inhabitants would have shocked with their disinterest in their fellow citizens’ affairs a native of the most populous cities on earth. But a man whose tastes ran to so tall and awkward specimen of the species as Whyborne was had best mind what implication could be taken from his actions all the same. 

It need not have been a lie. Griffin had had brothers, once. Jack had draped an overlarge coat around his shoulders on the train, its sleeves so long that they covered his hands whole. Years on, he no longer remembered the coat, nor even his brother’s face, but only the feeling of being covered in warmth. 

It was nothing to give a present to family without occasion. It was quite another to do so to a friend, to a boarder, to a man who in the eyes of the world could have no such claim upon him. And yet… 

What could be given to the son of a railroad magnate? It was one thing to think to himself that Whyborne was not like that, had not the scorn and arrogance common to his class, would never have joined the Brotherhood, and quite another to walk past the house he had grown up in and let himself contemplate such a childhood. 

What could Griffin ever have to offer a man like him? Only little gifts without occasion, that might say _I thought of you_ and not reveal how often the thought came, or how much pleasure it brought. Only to make himself as agreeable as possible, to bring his Ival little joys as though each smile could buy Griffin an extra day of his interest, could hold off for just an hour more the inevitable moment of their parting. 

He had refused the offer of having it wrapped. It was hard enough to give Whyborne presents casually as it was, to do so with all the trappings of a serious gift might have defeated him altogether. 

Even now, sitting on their bed, he turned the tie over and over in his hands. The colour was unmarked and regular throughout; it would have been too much to expect Whyborne to switch to patterns. Griffin had had the pleasure of helping him move in, of smoothing away the creases of transport and hanging them all up, each one a stronger proof that this was real, that Whyborne really was moving in. They had all invariably been in shades of brown and grey. Apparently the purple scarf really had been the brightest item of clothing Whyborne possessed. 

Griffin, whose own tastes ran more to colour, to brightening up a suit with a lively waistcoat, and who did not consider such uniform drabness to suit well a man so delightful, had not been able to resist. It would serve well to bring out those lovely eyes; it would allow Griffin to think, _I gave him that_ , even from across the street, even after they parted, and be reminded of what it had been like to be able to take Whyborne in his arms. 

Perhaps it would be better to wait. Even a monthly anniversary would be better than no occasion at all. Ival might find such a gift awkward, too revealing in how closely Griffin wished to cling to him. 

On the other hand, his plans for Valentine’s Day had been far from fulfilled, and there was no way to tell what might come up on such a day. Better, perhaps, to give him some demonstration of his affection, even a little trinket, so inadequate, whenever he could. 

But the decision was taken from his hands. Lost in thought, he had not heard Whyborne come in, had not heard him on the stairs. A man in love and trouble made a poor detective indeed. But Whyborne was already at the door, crossing the threshold into the room, and there Griffin sat on the bed, the tie in his hands. 

“Oh!” said Whyborne, stopping in surprise. “I didn’t think you’d be home yet. That is, I’m glad, of course, but you did say you might be late.”

“Mrs Zapatka recalled a few helpful details. So I’ve closed the case and she’s paid.” Thankfully in dollars, and not in the Spanish doubloons of unknown provenance they took from her at the market, so it might go towards the water bill. “I stopped by the grocer and bought coffee on my way back; there wasn’t much left after I made it this morning.”

He stood up then, and Whyborne’s gaze fell on the fabric in his hands. “And a new tie too, I see. I must say, it’s positively muted for you.” He was smiling. It lit up the room. 

It was only a few steps from the bed to the door, it was one less to Whyborne, who did not move at Griffin’s approach, only blinked at him. He stopped by him, and pressed their mouths together. 

Whyborne kissed back as eagerly as ever. 

He had meant it only as a kiss of greeting, light and brief, but when it came to it, Griffin found it difficult to pull away. From their first kiss on the ground outside that burning house, from the litany of kisses that had followed that night, he had always found it hard to do so. Whyborne had not lied, he knew, but still it was hard to take in that that lovely mouth could have gone so long unkissed, that the honour of taking Whyborne to bed could have been granted to Griffin first. 

He lifted one hand to Whyborne’s shoulder, pressing himself close. Whyborne made a faint noise against his mouth, far from a protest. The tie, which had been folded over, was allowed to unwind. 

Not pulling his mouth away from Whyborne’s, he dragged his arm, still with the tie, over his back, draping it very loosely. In such a state of distraction, he could not do it neatly. It did not lie around Whyborne’s neck as it should, but rather somewhat haphazardly over his shoulders. 

The sight might have been mildly comical by itself. The sight of Whyborne, who had pulled away, looking down at the coloured cloth with such a baffled expression, certainly was. He pulled it down with one hand to look at it lying in his hands, then up again at Griffin. 

Griffin looked back. His mouth was dry.

Whyborne, who knew thirteen languages and could understand even more, might have found the words more easily. He himself had no trouble usually in the course of his business to find the words he sought, nor had he in Chicago, at least not once he had stopped fretting so over his Kansas accent, over the speech of the farmboy he had struggled so to shed. But he had had nothing like this in Chicago either, though he had had lovers aplenty, but there had not been anybody whose attention and affection he had been so anxious to keep as he was Whyborne’s now. 

He said, into the silence, “I bought it for you.” And having gotten those words out, the rest came more easily. “I was walking past, and I thought – ” _of you_. It was too revealing. At the last moment, he changed his mind. “ – that it would suit you.” He reached out to brush his thumb over Whyborne’s cheekbone. A little pink flush followed the path of his touch, and emboldened by it, he allowed himself to express the sentiment. “I thought it would suit your eyes.” 

His other hand dropped down to Whyborne’s hands, brushing against them as he raised one end of the tie to hold it up to Whyborne’s face, as though to compare. “And I was quite right, my dear. Exceedingly lovely.”

Whyborne, going entirely pink, favoured him with that heart-stopping smile, the one Griffin had not yet had occasion to see directed at anyone else, and which never failed to make him feel like someone had just covered him in a warm blanket. It was impossible to resist the impulse to press forward and take his mouth again.

It was sometime before they resurfaced. Whyborne’s smile had grown soft. One end of the tie was still in his hand; he was tracing little circles around it with his thumb.

“Thank you,” he said, looking down at it and then up at Griffin again. “No one’s ever given me presents like this – well, except my mother. It’s really nice.” Then, a little sheepishly, “I’ll get you something in return. Just wait a little. I’ll think.”

There was no need. Ival had nothing to prove to him, for Griffin was helplessly gone for him already, however little claim he could make to deserving this wonderful man by his side. What’s more, already it seemed as though everywhere he went in Widdershins there was something to make him think of Whyborne. This street they had walked along together one fine day, on that bench they had sat. 

Still, if Whyborne’s gift was to be anything like his, he would be proud to wear it, and be reminded so often that at least for now, such a man cared for him, loved him enough to mark him so, though the constraints of the law meant it had to be kept private. He, who could have had his pick of a dozen others, men who were undamaged by horrors, by the asylum, made every day that same decision to stick by Griffin’s side, to take his hand as he did now and draw their bodies close together and reduce Griffin's thoughts to only this: _I love you I love you I love you_.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Can't Buy Me Love [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13218975) by [KD reads (KDHeart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDHeart/pseuds/KD%20reads)




End file.
